


Horror Vacui

by corbaccio



Series: Fear of the Empty [1]
Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Angst, Canon Compliant, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Ensemble Cast, Fluff, Gen, Gen or Pre-Slash, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-25
Updated: 2021-01-01
Packaged: 2021-03-10 02:40:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 21,126
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27716248
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/corbaccio/pseuds/corbaccio
Summary: The months since inheriting his power had done little to acclimatise Armin—to acclimatise anyone—to the fact of it. Even now, just considering those things together (Armin; the Colossus; Armin shifting into the Colossus) was enough to make Eren’s own thoughts falter. Two concepts so opposed in his mind that to relate them felt absurd. As often as it had come up in briefings, it had always been discussed in such abstract terms that it was hard to believeArminhad that power, that weapon, sleeping within his skin.(The initial experiments with Armin's Colossus don't go smoothly, but Eren tries his best to soften the blow.)
Relationships: Armin Arlert/Eren Yeager
Series: Fear of the Empty [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2108658
Comments: 41
Kudos: 223





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> i’ve always been curious about the logistics of armin’s initial transformation. how would it have gone and how would the corps have managed it, especially when there was no guarantee that armin would have had much control over something so impossibly huge... i didn’t mind much that it didn’t get covered in canon—there’s only so much time and space—but i thought it would be fun to explore. (and to put an eren/armin spin on it. oops. i didn't even try to resist.)

Over the past weeks, Eren had watched Armin’s nerves rise and rise until they reached fever pitch. It gave him a flighty manner that was almost contagious; Connie and Sasha reacted like startled livestock, avoiding Armin at his worst and eyeing him warily otherwise. Not that Armin seemed to notice. He was too wrapped up in his personal circle of hell to notice much of anything that went on outside of it.

Assignments got completed, at least. Eren saw reports appear on Armin’s desk and get returned in plenty of time. He might have been distracted during drills, though never to the point of accident—Armin was so careful to avoid a blood injury that it bordered on phobic. It was only in moments of downtime that he let show the real frantic wreck of himself. Never mind reading or playing chess or swapping jokes, the simple act of sitting at rest had become impossible. Armin’s hands would be in almost constant motion, whether twisting in his lap, fixing his uniform, or—and this was the most disturbing, the most difficult to watch—writing out reams of notes that would inevitably be fed into the fire by the evening’s end. It was like watching a man near his last days. A rat lapping the trap only so it wouldn’t chew off its own tail. 

Eren recognised the fear he was gripped by. Not so primitive as that which came when facing down a titan or a rifle, but a terrible one nonetheless. Armin never spoke out loud what it was that so upset him, and Eren could not bring himself to ask, but there was no need to. Once the news broke, it hung over the rest of the Corps like a thunderhead.

Spring was nearly upon them. Hanji’s titan guillotines had seen less and less victims until—gradually, unbelievably—the Garrison reported that they saw none at all. What started off as a tentative whisper gained steady momentum, until even before an official announcement was made it was in the citizens’ mouths: the titans in Wall Maria were gone, or near enough. Any remaining would likely be so idle that even a rookie scout could finish them off. Operations to re-establish a functioning road system were already underway, and making rapid progress. It was _exciting_. You could taste the change in the air, a kind of storm static; districts were livelier, people happier. Eren was amazed that even the tenuous promise of a better life could be so transformative. 

But such news brought other changes, too, within the Corps. Obligations that had been put on the back burner were suddenly thrust to the front, and the most pressing (it was practically setting Hanji on fire) was the experimentation with Armin’s Colossus. It wasn’t that it had been impossible before, but Eren could remember the council meetings well enough—in the immediate aftermath of the battle of Shiganshina, their priorities had been more political. Zackley and his men had been keen to avoid any unnecessary panic, anyway, should Armin have lost control too close to civilisation. The goodwill they had gone through such pains to achieve would have vanished in an instant had anything gone wrong near Rose territory. 

The problem was that it _had_ been so long in coming. Eren had hardly had the chance to breathe between the revelation of his shifting and Hanji’s excited attention, but that had had its own benefits. Less time to think, and with how eager Eren had been to show his value, that had suited him plenty. But the months since inheriting this power had done little to acclimatise Armin—to acclimatise anyone—to the fact of it. Even now, just considering those things together (Armin; the Colossus; Armin shifting into the Colossus) was enough to make Eren’s own thoughts falter, two concepts so opposed in his mind that to relate them felt absurd. As often as it had come up in briefings, it had always been discussed in such abstract terms. _Yes, the Corps were able to attain another power of the titans, a great boon to Paradis’ arsenal._ It was hard to believe that it was Armin who had that power, that weapon, sleeping beneath his skin.

Eren had not been there when Hanji had first raised the imminent prospect of the experiment. Maybe they had done so privately on purpose, as a kindness, to give Armin the freedom to react without an audience. But he had never been the most subtle, and while Eren hadn’t known at the time the cause of his anxiety, it had been immediately apparent: Armin had entered the mess hall one morning the same greyish colour of the winter sky, and he had barely picked at his food.

It was one of his most obvious tells. Handing off his breakfast to Sasha at her inevitable request had threatened to become a habit, until Mikasa stationed herself as some kind of dietary guardian. She would never remark on Armin’s appetite, but her presence had worked as pressure enough—against Sasha and for Armin—and Eren had been secretly, desperately grateful. She was far and away more tactful than Eren himself was. Hell, it had taken all the willpower he’d had (not much, but enough) to not grab Armin by the shoulders and beg him to eat, or to plead with the captain for meat rations. Either option would have been a terrible idea. Similar intervention had never failed to make Armin livid in the past. Quietly, internally, more at himself than anyone else—but livid nonetheless, his anger burning like a coal seam beneath the still surface of the earth. Knowing that hadn’t stopped Eren from wanting to do it anyway, though. Sitting opposite Armin at the table, he would repress the urge so hard that his jaw would ache from the forceful way he champed his own breakfast. 

To Armin’s credit, he was doing a decent job concealing his unease from their superiors. His calm front might have stood on shaky ground, but he managed to maintain it through the operational briefing with the military commanders. It was only when news of the experiment was leaked to the papers that he turned into this brittle, bristling shadow. 

(Jean had even accosted Eren in private to ask about it, and what an agony that had been. Guiltily, awkwardly, Eren had downplayed Armin’s behaviour, his gaze drifting from Jean’s earnest own. _You know… just nervous. Who wouldn’t be?_ And Jean had nodded, understanding. Kinder than Eren had expected, honestly. It had felt like a betrayal to suggest that Armin might very well be shit-scared. At least Mikasa had agreed with Eren there: if he did want to admit it, then Armin would do so himself. Though the idea of Armin confessing his worries to _Jean_ rather than to him and Mikasa had been surprisingly upsetting, even in the hypothetical.)

They saw less of Armin the closer the mission came, necessarily; most of his time was taken up running through the finer details with the commander. But it made Eren more anxious still, and even Mikasa—who had kept up her cool facade in Armin’s presence—threw herself into training with the nervous intensity of someone who needed the distraction. 

Had the matter been anything other than what it was, the confrontation would have been simple. Still painful, yes, but easier. It wouldn’t have been necessary to call it a _confrontation_ at all. Eren and Mikasa would have spoken to Armin honestly, as they had always done, and that had always worked, because that which was comforting did not have to be coddling. When Armin was at his most even-keeled, he understood that too. But what they were dealing with this time was such a twisted mess, one that soured Eren’s stomach even though he was sure—as sure as he had ever been, about anything—that they had made the right choice. All else that came with it was irrelevant. The enormity of the Colossus in size and in significance, and the crushing weight of the fight, and the guilt, and the ghost of Erwin Smith, whose presence they felt so strongly that he was hardly a ghost at all, whose voice and eyes and manner must have sewn themselves into Armin’s skin and branded his bones—to Eren, it was chaff. Right or wrong though that thought might have been. Armin was alive; in what world could that have been the _wrong_ choice? 

Maybe, though, there lay the core of the issue. For Armin would never be dissuaded from the belief that they had chosen wrong. He had reached his own conclusion, and as rare as it was for Armin to cede a point, it was rarer still that he was mistaken. Trying to change his mind was like trying to reverse the current of a river with your hands while you stood in it. The water would simply course past as though you were hardly there at all.  
  
  
  
  
There were only some days left before the mission when Eren broached the topic with Mikasa. Up to then, they had operated on some wordless understanding: best to let Armin work through his demons without interference. It was their default approach, and often a safe bet—ever since they were nine years old and Armin could not bear to look at their raw knuckles and split lips from fighting where he would not. It had become increasingly obvious that it was not working _now_ , though. 

Eren was lucky to catch her. With preparations well underway and Mikasa’s own exhaustive training regimen, there were few chances to make conversation alone. It was just before lights-out that he saw her coming in from a shower. Her wet hair was snatched into a bun, up and away from her neck; it made her look especially vulnerable.

If Eren’s question came as a surprise, it did not show on her face. 

“Do you think we should talk to him?”

Mikasa touched her scarf, an unconscious habit that never failed to give her away. It was unusual to see such naked uncertainty from her, and the sight of it made Eren even edgier.

“He tends to get more upset if we make a point of asking,” she said quietly.

Eren had only just sat down, but he shoved himself up from his chair with such force that it screeched against the floor. Frustration prickled beneath his skin, frothing his blood. “Have you said anything already?”

Mikasa let out a sigh. She leaned forward on to her folded arms.

“I asked if he was okay.”

“Oh. And?”

Another sigh. “He said he was fine. He asked me to please not worry about him.”

Eren felt the abortive urge to kick something. It wasn’t anger directed at anyone—not at Armin or Mikasa, at least—but it felt like if he did nothing, he might explode. Instead, Eren took a deep breath, counted, and released it through his nose. “Well, that’s nothing new.”

Mikasa lowered her head into the cradle of her arms, hiding her face completely. Her voice, muffled though it was, sounded forlorn. “He’d hate it if he knew we were talking about him like this.”

And how true that was. Eren felt all the violent energy drain from him, and in its place there was left only empty exhaustion. He collapsed back into his seat. 

“I know,” he said at last. It was a pointless comment, but then this was a pointless discussion. On the unlikely chance that they were able to get Armin alone over the coming days, that he’d be willing to tolerate the combined front of their concern was even less likely. “I thought he was… I thought we were past this.”

There was an acknowledging noise from across the table. Mikasa did not lift her face from her folded arms. Eren wanted to comfort her, to rest his hand on her wrist or the damp crown of her head, and he wanted comforting. He would have accepted the words from anyone— _everything will work out_ —but there was no one there to speak them, and Eren could taste the bitterness of the lie even as the words formed only in his mind.  
  


* * *

  
Shiganshina’s restoration was a few months down the pipeline yet. There were districts within Wall Maria that were not flattened wrecks that could and would be repopulated first. It made sense, then, for Armin’s first transformation to take place there. Any collateral damage would be contained to an empty town that had already been razed twice; Armin could hardly make it worse. He was to shift within the district itself, by the internal wall that separated Shiganshina from Maria territory proper. The Colossus was enormous, but it was slow; and the wall was, of course, the perfect height to reach its nape in an instant. 

A temporary outpost had been established by a recon team some days before and supplied appropriately. The project was to last a week, and so they would be staying in a clutch of shabby huts in a former farming village without a name, a half-hour ride from Shiganshina through a forested plain. It gave them more than enough distance and cover from any potential fallout, while staying within easy reach of the district’s wall. 

“We’re going to work quickly for this first time,” Hanji said on the journey. “Armin shifts, we cut him out. If it’s anything like it was for you, Eren, then I’m not expecting him to have full—or any—control.”

Armin barely reacted to this surreal discussion. He stayed pale and silent throughout, raising his head only when called on to speak. Eren fought the urge to watch him too closely, but it was impossible; his gaze moved back to him again and again. When Hanji began to run through the precautionary measures—of which there were many—they did so at such manic speed that, with Eren’s distracted attention, he caught hardly any of it.

The sun was setting as they started out for Shiganshina, only some hours since their arrival at basecamp. By the time they reached the internal wall, it was dark. A night operation. When Connie had asked why, Armin had shrugged, looking out ahead rather than at any one of them: “On the off chance that I damage the wall and expose any of the colossal titans inside it.”

The air had gone very still after that.

Lifts had been installed for the express purpose of the experiment, and so horses, soldiers, and supplies could be transported easily to the top of the wall, out of harm’s way. It took multiple trips to get everything in place. As Eren watched the mass movement, it dawned on him the enormity of the operation, and how long it must have taken to prepare. No wonder Armin had been whisked away so frequently. And no wonder his nerves were so frayed.

Armin had been inscrutable all day, and even now his expression gave little away. But as the moment of truth approached, Eren could not help but notice the tremor that shook his hands as he held them together in his lap. There was one final load to be raised—barrels full of water and med supplies—and then Armin would be left there on the ground, alone, with nothing but a flare gun and a hunting knife. 

He kept turning it in his palm, the knife. Over and over, the flat of the blade flashing back the light of the moon, the lantern, his own sallow face. Eren felt a comment tickle his throat every time Armin did so. _Oh—be careful._ Nothing but a remark he would always make when he’d see Armin get distracted, telling Connie some answering fact or old story as they chopped vegetables together on KP duty. Knee-jerk, pure reflex, his mother’s habit passed into him now like some stone tablet he could not help but read from. He often had to swallow such comments around Armin. _Watch your fingers. You should eat more. I can reach that for you, let me…_

It was not that he thought Armin at all incapable; that had never entered his mind. But these things formed in Eren’s mouth with such readiness that he could barely catch them with his teeth before speaking them out loud.

On top of the wall, it was dead silent but for the grinding squeal of the lift’s winch. Armin paced back and forth, pausing only to crane over the edge and watch the platform rise ever upwards. He must have felt the weight of Eren’s gaze, for he turned suddenly to face him. It was the first time Armin had addressed him so directly since that morning—a clinical question of how long it took to heal a knife wound—and though Eren was glad to hear his voice, it brought little relief. 

“Are you worried?” Armin asked. He looked very small, hunched up in his cloak as if he could disappear beneath it.

Eren’s throat worked. He wanted to say otherwise with the kind of immediate confidence that would ease Armin’s nerves, but the words wouldn’t come. 

“Worried?” he echoed. He was acutely aware of his own dry mouth. “I… _worried_ isn’t the right word, I guess.”

It was a useless non-answer, but that didn’t seem to matter; Eren’s words prompted no reaction. Armin was looking out over the landscape again, its blank darkness yawning ahead. The light of the shining stones was eerie, bluish. It made Armin’s already pale face paler still, his skin stark as bone.

“I’m not worried about the transformation, you know,” he went on, as if he hadn’t asked Eren the question at all. “I don’t really care about what happens after. I mean, Hanji said there’s a risk of amputation, and that’s…” he paused, a queasy look coming over him though only briefly, “I can handle that. I mean, I have to. But I’m worried that I won’t be—”

“Armin! We’re all set.”

Eren froze. He had been so absorbed in Armin’s haunted expression, his musing—spoken so quietly, a mantra more to himself—that he hadn’t noticed the lift had finished its ascent. Behind Hanji’s approaching silhouette, barrels were being rolled and set in rows. A column of stacked buckets stood nearby. Another safety precaution: water could be bailed out as needed. All of a sudden, everything felt very real. 

Armin shot upright. “Of course. I’m coming.”

His hand went to his waist as he walked past. He wore no gear, no blades, only the harness. There was the slithery noise of metal against leather as he tucked the knife into the sheath attached to his belt. It should not have caught his attention, but Eren watched too closely not to notice: that, while Armin’s hands were steady now, his nails were bitten to the quick.  
  
  
  
  
The red light of the signal flare tore through the empty dark. The suddenness of it made the entire unit cringe, the only forewarning a _pop_ a scant second before, no louder than a cork released from a bottle. After Armin’s descent, they had moved farther along the external arc of Shiganshina’s wall, but it was bright enough to cast them all in its odd acid light despite the distance.

They had been standing there for thirty agonised, agonising minutes. At first, the dread anticipation had been so great that no one had dared speak, but gradually the fear had waned. The mood on top of the wall had turned edgy, and then impatient. Eren had felt only miserable panic, his mind running through its imagined scenes with such vivid clarity that they might as well have been real. Armin, slicing strips off his palms. Armin, cursing under his breath. Crouching, and standing, and stalking back and forth as if he could chase the transformation out of himself.

For Eren, the sight of the flare filled him with as much relief as it did unease. A feeling shared by most of the squad, it seemed, by the flagging expressions they wore. The only exceptions were the commander and the captain. Hanji looked at their wit’s end. At the signal’s searing flash, they had thrown their hands up in the air and turned away from it. Levi, meanwhile, looked the same as he always did. Unsurprised, unaffected, his grey eyes somehow tired and alert at once. 

“Well?” His voice cut through the awkward silence. Everyone turned to face him but Hanji, who stared resolutely out at the world beyond. “What now, Commander? Back on the lift?”

Hanji paused. And then, sucking air through their teeth in an audible hiss, they said, “You go down there and check first. I want to be sure before we make a mass exodus.”

“I’ll go,” Mikasa offered. Her hands were already closing around the grips of her manoeuvre gear, but the look Hanji shot her made Eren blanch, and he wasn’t even its intended target.

“No, you won’t,” they said, not cold so much as weary. “That’s an order, Levi.”

There was no argument—there was no room for it. Mikasa lowered her gaze and her hands, obedient, as Levi pitched over the wall. He moved so quickly and so quietly that he could have been somebody’s cloak snatched in a tailwind, vanishing into the dark. The only anchoring point below was the white glow from Armin’s lantern. You wouldn’t know Armin was actually down there. The night, and the dense shadow of the wall, swallowed everything that lay beneath it.

Manoeuvring was faster than taking the lift, and Levi was freakishly fast anyway; it felt like he’d hardly left before he was back again, boots creaking as he heaved himself upright from the edge. His expression was no different, and despite the long months spent working together, Eren struggled to glean anything from it. If Levi had looked disappointed, then that would have given him _something_ —something to be angry at, maybe—but instead he was cool and blank.

“It’s not happening,” he said, directing his attention towards Hanji, “he’s cut himself a few times and he’s steaming away down there, all right. But Armin says he can’t seem to do it.”

The only sign that Hanji had heard him was the barest twitch of the left side of their mouth. Eventually, they said, “Right. Okay. Well… it was a likely possibility.” They turned to face the squad. “We’ll make our way down. No point wasting the rest of the evening just to be tired tomorrow.”

The startled pause after they spoke could not have lasted more than five seconds, but it was long enough that Hanji swatted the air. “Go on!”

There was an answering flurry of movement. Horses were led to the platform, the cart driven into place. At least most of the supplies could stay where they had been unloaded; they would only be back here again the next night, after all, and the next, and the next after that. Eren felt the terrible seizing hope that Armin would be okay—tonight and for the nights to come—whether he managed to shift or not. He knew the corrosive nature of this pressure. An expectation made heavier still by the weight of the lives that had been lost and those that could be saved. 

It was a long way down. Eren hauled himself into the corner of the cart next to Mikasa, and he tried to let her solid presence steady his skipping pulse.  
  


* * *

  
On meeting Armin at the base of the wall, he avoided everyone’s eye but Hanji’s, and even then his gaze would slide away as if repelled by some irresistible force. The descent had taken long enough that his injuries had healed completely. Not even steam rose from them now, though blood smeared his wrists and hands in blackish streaks. The handle of the knife, tucked back into its sheath, was sticky-shiny with it. Mikasa lifted her cloak from her shoulders and tried to pass it to him. 

“Use this,” she said.

Armin did not even look at her. He shook his head. “It’s fine. I’ll use mine.”

“You’ll be cold,” she said, almost below earshot.

“I’m not cold. There’s spares back at basecamp, anyway.”

And with that, he tore off his own cloak and swiped at his arms with such viciousness that Eren saw Mikasa wince. 

Armin’s insecurities had become a latent thing over the past year, and for good reason: he had shown his worth again and again, in battle and outside of it. But with the increasing pressure they had risen back to the surface with a vengeance. Any kindness, from anyone, was met with flat—albeit polite—rejection. The politeness was the problem. It made it impossible to call Armin out, at least not without seeming unreasonable. 

With an unhappy shrug and a lingering look, Mikasa turned back towards them. Eren felt himself swallow. Witnessing Armin’s cold shoulder from afar was not much better than bearing the brunt of it, and the pall of tension was oppressive. Mikasa simply fixed her gaze on the horizon and said nothing, lifting her scarf over her chin. Armin followed shortly behind. He was caught by Hanji on his way, and though few words appeared to pass between them, they touched his arm. Gently, briefly, but still.

That assurance did little to lighten Armin’s mood, though at least he did not shrug it off. Jean was not so lucky. On reaching the cart, Armin ignored his outstretched hand and instead heaved himself over the side, settling into sullen silence. If the atmosphere had been bad before, it was unbearable now. No one was brave or oblivious enough to speak across it, and the comfort that Eren had meant to offer died in his mouth. 

It had been like that for him, too, after all. Even now the memory of that desperation itched like a nettle sting. Not so fierce as it had been under the suffocating attention of Levi’s squad, but impossible to forget. The close dark of the well and how it had reeked of standing water long gone dry. The taste of his own blood in his mouth, and his hands throbbing in time with his heartbeat. The pain had been bad, but the shame—that had been worse.

The outpost was not far, though the airless silence made the half-hour ride feel much longer. Eren’s skin crawled with the urge to speak. Across from him, Sasha and Connie had found refuge in falling asleep almost on top of each other. The easy way they talked and joked and jostled elbows had been making him jealous of late, and now Eren felt that jealousy so keenly that his stomach hurt. All he ever seemed to do was look at Armin, these days. And sometimes even that felt like a transgression. 

Eren risked a side-long glance. He could not see Armin’s face; it would have been difficult anyway, sat along the same side as they were, but with how Armin was bent forward it was impossible. His elbows were on his knees, his hands hovering in the air between them. The curtain of his hair hid his profile from view. Now that he had rolled his sleeves back down to his wrists, Eren could see the blood that blotted the cuffs. Every so often, when the cart jerked over some rough terrain or the horses balked, Armin’s hands would tighten as if he were holding the reins. 

That, if nothing else, lifted some of the weight from Eren’s chest. Armin had often been assigned to drive the cart when it had been necessary. The mechanics of it were worn into his muscle memory.

 _You’re still you,_ Eren thought, so fervently that he hoped Armin would somehow grasp what he would not say. _The things that make you haven’t gone anywhere. It’s easy to forget that, sometimes._

Monsters though they might have been, nothing could take that away. Even in Trost—mere moments after Eren had been dragged from the carcass of his titan only to face down a firing squad in that seething, silent square—Armin and Mikasa had not doubted him, not even for a second. In how they had looked at him, and held him, and with their shameless unfailing faith, they had shown Eren just how human he was within that mass of scalding flesh.  
  
  
  
  
The night grew denser as they passed through the woods. The watery shafts of moonlight that made it through the canopy were little help, though the shining stones worked to illuminate the ground ahead. The huts serving as basecamp appeared only as they were upon them, squat and sad-looking—but clean, as Levi’s presence had guaranteed—and there was a rapid jockeying to get the horses settled and their meagre kit unpacked. The experiment might have been cut short, but exhaustion rolled over everyone like a fog. It was always that way the first night of a nocturnal operation. They would only get used to these hours by the end of the week, Eren knew, after which they would have to adapt yet again to the routine early rises of HQ.

Eren was not tired at all. Any weariness had been chased away by the queasy mix of guilt and concern that turned his stomach. There was only one way to be rid of it. As much as Armin might try to excuse himself, Eren had mustered up enough courage during the journey that he was certain he could convince him otherwise. Just a talk. Armin couldn’t, _wouldn’t_ refuse him that. 

Though as he went to call Armin’s name, he was off like a shot. His cloak sat in a heap on the bench, abandoned; Armin practically threw himself out of the cart. Eren’s panicky _wait!_ was cut clean away as he realised that Armin was going in the wrong direction. He was not heading for the huts. Rather, he was walking straight back into the woods they had just emerged from.

Eren stared, stunned into silence. It took Connie’s startled yelp to steal his attention: Hanji must have dismounted—they had ridden ahead on horseback—but on noticing Armin’s retreat, they thrust the reins into Connie’s face. 

Hanji took a few halting steps.

“Armin! Where are you going, exactly?” It was said with forced lightness. Hanji wore a tight grin, one hand at the edge of their goggles as if they could adjust what they were seeing.

Armin froze. He kept his back to them. It would not be obvious to everyone else, and certainly not from such a distance, but Eren could see the high tension in his shoulders. They were hunched nearly to his ears. 

He turned his head, just a little. The liquid edge of his eye flashed. “I’m just going for a walk.”

Hanji jogged closer, only some feet from Eren standing at the cart. There was a breathless moment, in which Eren felt the attention of everyone in the clearing fix on this strange scene. Armin was perfectly still, his upright shape picked out against the dark canvas of the trees. More like a pillar of stone than a person.

“A walk?” Hanji sounded incredulous, the pretence of humour vanishing from their voice. “ _Now?_ In the woods, in the middle of the night?”

Silence. Eren had spent the past month being unnerved by Armin’s behaviour, but this insubordination, benign as it was, inspired active dread. At least Hanji had seen much worse, and from their very squad. The memory made Eren’s chest tighten. His heart felt like an angry bird, thumping against the cage of his ribs.

Levi spoke before Armin could come up with an answer. “Hanji. Leave it.”

Shock broke open the tense grimace on Hanji’s face, but they schooled it back to neutrality once again. “Really, Levi?” They let out a short laugh, and their eyes shifted to Eren. “Looks like your troublesome teenage phase is spreading, huh, Eren?”

They offered him another humourless grin. Eren said nothing. He felt the heat of Levi’s gaze as it passed between them. 

“It’s been a long day,” Levi said, “and you’ve got the rest of the week left to play with. The walls aren’t going anywhere.” He dropped his voice low, just beneath Eren’s hearing. Whatever he said this time seemed to work: Hanji released a long, unbroken sigh, and for the first time Eren saw weary misery slip through the mask. 

With a final shake of the head, Hanji pivoted on their heels and marched off. “Fine. Fine! I guess I _am_ getting too old to understand.”

Levi did not follow. The sear of his hawkish gaze made every member of their incidental audience scuttle off, heads and eyes low. Only Eren and Mikasa—she had been by the nearest hut, watering the horses—remained where they were, caught between the implicit command and their concern for Armin. When Eren took the chance to look, he saw that Armin had already started off again.

“One of you go after him,” said Levi. “Idiot’s not even geared up. I don’t want him running off _or_ running into a titan’s mouth, if he should be so lucky as to find one.” 

Despite the words, there was no real venom in them. As always, Levi gave nothing away. Not in his voice, in his face, nor how he stood there watching them. Eren could sense his own stare in tandem with Mikasa’s. The oddness of the stand-off—not confrontational but unsettling still—made gooseflesh rise on his arms. It felt like a challenge, though Eren did not know why he was looking for one. 

It would have been easier if Levi were angry. Frustrated. This was his burden as much as it was Armin’s, Eren thought, and there rose the selfish question: why should Levi seem so stable when Armin was so fractured? 

It felt unfair. Even as Eren knew that he should have been grateful for the captain’s cold kindness, because that’s what this was. Most superior officers would have dragged Armin back to camp themselves, and with the promise of discipline on their return. Maybe Armin would have been cuffed to his bed, as Eren had been so long ago. The idea chilled his blood.

Something in Levi’s face softened, just barely, and with it the strained atmosphere dissolved. He turned back towards the huts. “What a shitty situation,” he muttered.

And they were left mostly alone.

Mikasa spoke first. Eren was still catching his breath; with the release of tension, it felt like someone had been holding his lungs in a vice grip. 

“Are you going to go after him?” she asked.

The woods were dark and still. It had not taken long for Armin to vanish between the crowding trees; though their branches were winter-bare, they stood close enough that in the night they looked like a solid wall. The light of Armin’s lantern was visible still. Faint but not fading, not yet. 

“I’ll go if you don’t.”

Eren turned to face her. Fear was thick in his throat, and it took him a moment to get it to work. “You don’t think we should leave him alone?”

Mikasa watched him with an unreadable expression, but Eren knew her well enough that she was rarely beyond his understanding. And since their imprisonment, a little more feeling had begun to show through her flat affect. Mostly, Eren saw sadness there. She looked sad, now, too.

“I don’t know,” she said. “But he’s been avoiding us for weeks now and nothing has changed. You know what Armin can be like.”

The comment could have made Eren laugh. It should have. But the urge slid over him like a cloud’s shadow: it had no real power.  
  


* * *

  
“You’re not going to start shouting, are you?”

Armin leapt a good foot into the air. The lantern leapt too, flying from Armin’s grip and clattering noisily to the ground, its light cast upwards like a beacon. It cut strange shadows into the woodland around them. 

“Eren? … God, you scared me,” Armin said. He had his hand pressed up against his chest, as if he could dampen the pounding of his heart. 

“Sorry. I didn’t mean to sneak up on you,” Eren said. Quieter, this time. 

In truth, Eren had been deliberately graceless to avoid such a fright—kicking at leaflitter and tramping through the undergrowth with such abandon that Eren himself had cringed at the noise. Armin must have been very deep in thought if he had not noticed his approach. Unbidden, the captain’s words surfaced in Eren’s mind. The fear came not from the mere possibility of a titan nearby, or even that Armin would not hear one, but that he might not run from it in the first place.

Armin only shrugged. He bent for the lantern, though he did not lift it. He simply set it upright in the grass. 

“Right. Sorry,” he said, halting. “My mind was elsewhere.”

Eren watched him hover halfway out of his crouch, as if he had not even the energy to stand. The impulse to offer a hand took some serious effort to push down. At last, Armin straightened up on his own. He turned out towards the woods, the light shifting from his face as he did so. 

The silence that hung over them was unsettling. There was no breeze, and they were far enough from camp that no noise reached the clearing; this could have been another world, a space carved out only for them. He only knew Armin was breathing by the vapour it made in the frigid air. 

This should not have been difficult. Wasn’t this the chance that Eren had wanted so badly? With each passing silent second, he could feel the line trailing out of his grasp, and when he’d only just found it again. For all his fretting, Eren had not thought about what he should actually _say_ once he’d got Armin alone. It should have come naturally. He had expected it to. Everything had always been natural with Armin. 

So—of course—Eren spoke the first thing that came to mind. “There could be a titan lying dormant around here, you know? It’s dangerous.” 

There was a moment of quiet consideration. And then, Armin gave a high, dry little laugh. “I guess it would be some random Eldian’s lucky day.” 

Though his face was turned away, there was no mistaking that bitterness. And as awful as it sounded, Eren felt a thrill of hope: this was a part of Armin he recognised, no matter how miserable. With how strange he had become—so hard to reach—any familiar sign filled Eren with relief. 

“… You only make morbid jokes like that when you’re upset,” he said. 

At first, Armin did not reply. He was thinking, and Eren could sense the impending comeback even from behind, in the rigid set of Armin’s spine, the tilt of his head. But then the tension broke, and his shoulders went slack.

“Yeah. I guess that’s true,” he said. His voice had that familiar hoarse edge of swallowed tears, but when he turned to face Eren there was no sign of them. His eyes looked dry and dull. “You know me too well.”

 _Of course I do_ , Eren thought. _Better than I know anything. Than I think I know myself, half the time._

He shrugged instead. “You’re not too hard to read.” It was the wrong thing to say, by the sudden thinning of Armin’s mouth. Shit. Eren took a step towards him and stopped. “I only mean that, you know, running out into the woods? It’s not usually part of your evening routine.”

That, at least, earned him a wan smile. “Well… not lately.”

Ah, there it was. Familiar ground, solid and warm as sunned earth itself. “And even then, you’d only sneak out after you were sure everyone was asleep.”

Some colour came into Armin’s cheeks. It suited him better than his previous pallor. He lowered his gaze as if shy, or maybe just with the effort of remembering. How long ago that felt now, impossibly so—another world, another lifetime. 

Suddenly, Armin asked, “Why are you here, Eren?”

He sounded so tired. Eren could hear him breathing despite the distance, deeply, slowly. In and out, a forced rhythm. If Armin would just look at him again, Eren was sure it would be okay; he would comprehend the anguish that had him so gripped, and from there it would be simple, instinctive. But Armin’s gaze was fixed firmly on the ground.

The question gave him an in, though. One Armin offered unwittingly, maybe, but still—they were talking, and that had to be a step in the right direction.

“I was worried about you,” Eren said, quickly, before he could think better of it. “I—”

“Don’t be.”

Eren’s mouth snapped shut. The tone of Armin’s voice suggested he wasn’t interested in an argument. But that tiny kernel of frustration could be turned to use, as long as Eren handled it with care.

“You’re angry,” he said. Pause, breathe. Armin’s eyes, a deep and misted blue, lifted to meet his.

“I’m not angry.” 

“You’re allowed to be.” The words he had been wanting to say for so long were rising from the depths of his guts where he’d buried them, over and over, every single time they surfaced. _Be angry. Get angry at me. Go on, I can take it._ “Anyone would be.”

Another sigh, this one irritated. “Who am I meant to be angry at, Captain Levi? The commander? Or you, or Mikasa?” Armin asked. He closed his eyes and kept them closed. “If anything, you should be frustrated with _me_.”

“What?” Eren frowned. “Because you can’t transform? I couldn’t do it the first time, either. I told you, didn’t I? The spoon—”

Armin cut him off. “I remember,” he said. There was a long, uneasy pause, and then Armin pressed the heels of his hands into his face. “Sorry, Eren. I mean… you went through the exact same thing. I should be grateful that I’m not being treated like a criminal as well as a test subject.”

Finally Eren found the courage to cross the distance between them. It was easier now that he couldn’t see Armin’s face. Eren lifted his hands but he did nothing with them; touching Armin still felt off limits. “Don’t say stuff like that,” he said. “This isn’t some kind of misery competition.”

He’d thought that his voice—louder now with the proximity—would prompt Armin to raise his head, but he did not. He simply stood there, silent, breathing like every breath took a concentrated effort. 

Very quietly, so quietly it was almost inaudible, Armin said, “I don’t know if I can do this, Eren. I’m… I’m not as brave as you.”

Eren wondered what expression he was making. What emotion Armin considered so unacceptable that Eren could not be allowed to see it, when Eren had seen so much of him already, and Armin so much of him. 

The statement was absurd enough, anyway, that it hardly warranted a response.

“You still don’t remember, then,” said Eren. He did not elaborate; he didn't have to, and this at least made Armin look at him.

“I’ve heard the reports enough times. I’ve made copies of it myself.” Armin’s mouth twisted unhappily. “Does it matter if I don’t remember?”

Of course it mattered. Once, Armin had admitted that hearing the account second-hand so many times made it seem yet more unreal. As if such an act was beyond him, his fear too great an obstacle. But Eren knew. He could recall the moment so clearly that Armin’s shaking voice still rang in his ears, sometimes. That Eren dreamt about the look on his face, sure and solemn, and the horrible light of hope that would not be dimmed, not even as Armin had thrown himself into that wall of scorching heat. 

Maybe if he did remember, Armin would finally realise just how brave he had been. That he _was_. But most likely, he would never remember. There might be flashes, moments of pain and noise and pressure, that would find clarity only in that liminal space between sleeping and waking. Some nights Eren heard Armin jerk awake as he often had himself. And every time, Eren would want to go to him, the impulse so strong that it kept him from sleep. Though not in a bad way. More like the light of the morning sun on your face as you rose from a dream. Familiar, warm, inescapable. This longing, after all, was a well-worn thing by now.

Eren could not find the right words with which to argue the point. A part of him was afraid to try, because he felt Armin might see through them to the naked truth that Eren struggled daily to keep locked away. It wouldn’t be fair to admit these feelings. Not with what Eren knew now, and not with the burden Armin had been forced to carry.

Eren’s gaze dropped from Armin’s face to his hands. Clean, uninjured. His writer’s callus, which used to be so prominent that it resembled another knuckle, was gone. More than that—it would never exist again. 

Armin flexed his fingers as though he had sensed Eren’s attention. Watching intently as he did so.

“It still hurts a little,” he said.

Eren clenched his own fists. His nails bit sharp points of pain into the meat of his palms. 

“Yeah. It’s weird. It’s like your mind expects it to hurt even though it’s healed.”

“Phantom pain,” Armin murmured. 

The knife was still at his waist. As Eren lifted his head, he was drawn to the black handle. How benign it seemed now that it was sheathed. The shape of it was evident even so, the curve of its blade echoed in clumsy brown leather. 

Armin looked up in surprise as Eren pressed closer—his face opening up as if expectant—and Eren took advantage of the drop in his guard. With his right hand, he unsheathed the knife; with the other, he grabbed Armin’s wrist. He held his palm up between them, thumb pressed beneath Armin’s lax fingers to keep him from forming a fist. 

“Eren?”

“It’s okay,” Eren said. He caught Armin’s stare and held it. “You trust me, don’t you?”

Armin did not look away. The frown had been swept from his face. “Of course I do,” he said, softly. 

He must have understood Eren’s intent. Even someone like Connie would have been able to put these simple pieces together: Armin’s knife, Armin’s hand. Quickly, smoothly, Eren slid the blade across Armin’s open palm. There was a shallow gasp, involuntary. Blood welled beneath the knife’s press; the cut was deep and clean. Eren could see the startling edge of parted flesh either side of the wound, translucent, even with the free flow of blood.

There was a long and loaded pause. Armin was holding his breath. Blood ran down the channels of his palm lines, pooling around Eren’s thumb. And then—slowly, slow enough that it could have been a trick of the light—steam began to rise from it. The bleeding eased; the flesh started to seam together. Eren could feel some strange staticky pressure in the air, though he had no idea whether it rose from Armin’s power or purely from the atmosphere between them. But he was not afraid, and Armin did not shift. 

After several protracted minutes, the cut on his palm had healed completely.

Armin’s voice punctured the curious peace. “That was a stupid thing to do.”

“Maybe,” said Eren, “but you let me do it.”

Armin ignored the comment. His brow was furrowed again, but the worst of that cold and empty despair had left him now; there was new warmth in his eyes. 

“What if I’d shifted?” he said.

Eren had an answer prepared, inane as it was. “I would have shifted, too. I could have bitten you out.”

“That’s—ridiculous. You would have been blown to pieces by the transformation in the first place. Even you couldn’t heal from that.”

There was no denying that. Eren might have managed to shift in time, but he was still too close—he would have been crushed by the Colossus’ size or torn apart by the impact. But Eren had known with crystalline conviction that Armin was not going to shift. 

He shrugged easily. Eren quirked one corner of his mouth. Not quite a smile, but enough to show willing. “I dunno. I am pretty resilient.”

Armin stared at him with a turbulent expression. There was so much evident in his face, now, more emotion than Eren had seen from him in weeks. Fear and frustration, sure—but something brighter kept shining beneath that sullen veneer. Amusement, maybe. Affection, Eren dared to hope.

Finally, Armin’s face arranged itself into something like fond disdain. “You’d need to be more than resilient to survive that,” he said. His voice dropped low as he went on, “Seriously, Eren, that really was dangerous. If something _had_ happened to you… I don’t even want to think about it. I could have destroyed the whole camp.”

Eren shook his head. “You’re talking like you have no control over it. But you do—you’ve just shown that. You need to trust yourself more, Armin. It’s not like what happened with me is a guaranteed outcome. You _aren’t_ like me. I mean, even when I try not to, I let my emotions take over. But you… you think through everything. You’re so considered.” Eren heard the tremor in his voice, and he forced himself to take pause. When they were this close, it became increasingly difficult to swallow down the feelings that clawed at his throat. Some things were better left unspoken.

And still he held Armin’s hand in his own. A little too tightly, but Armin made no attempt to pull away. 

“Maybe I make a lot of wrong choices because of that,” Eren went on. “But if that’s the case, then I’ll always make the wrong choice.” 

_Come on, Armin. Understand what I’m not brave enough to say. You’ve always seen right through everything, haven’t you? Right to the very guts of me._

Armin’s eyes went wide. So bright that they hurt to look at, even with the light of the lantern so low.

“Now that is a risky thing to say,” he said shakily. “If Hanji heard you talking like that…”

“They’d what? Give me a lecture? A disciplinary hearing?” Eren grinned. It was uneven, but it was sincere. “I don’t think it would hold up. And I’m pretty used to getting chewed out by now.”

And there—at last—a real smile dimpled Armin’s cheek. Eren could hear it light up his voice when he spoke, and the sight and sound of it lifted his heart right out of his chest. 

“Your resilience in action, huh,” Armin said.  
  


* * *

  
The room was clean, but still it smelled sour from the years left empty. That, along with the cold, kept Eren awake. He was sharing with Jean and a Garrison officer whose name he couldn’t recall; they had already been deeply asleep on his return. Armin had gone off to his own hut. He was not sharing with anyone—another safety measure though an arbitrary one, considering how close they were clustered together. 

Eren lifted his hand into the air above his head. He’d rinsed it off earlier—Armin had not wanted to face an interrogation had the evidence of a recent injury been noticed—but some of Armin’s blood remained there, a dark crescent crusted beneath his thumbnail. Had it been a stupid thing to do? Yes. Worth it? Absolutely. Even now Eren could feel the cushion of Armin’s palm within his grip. The weight of expectation as his gaze fixed on Eren’s, intrigued. That vulnerability, offered so easily. No fear had darkened Armin’s face, not for a second; not even as the knife had sliced so cleanly through his flesh.

A titan’s body and blood would evaporate, eventually. Given up into the air it formed from. But a shifter, injured as a human, would bleed as normal until the wound closed itself. Eren had seen Armin bleed for many reasons. From being shoved against a wall, face-first. From the chafe of the harness straps (his heels used to blister horribly, every pair of socks stained as if by rust). From botching a landing during manoeuvre training. And once, the vegetable knife had taken the very tip off his index finger as he’d peeled potatoes. That had been rather dramatic, and Eren could not keep himself from smiling at the memory. There had been a solemn debate about whether they could serve bled-on potatoes—rinsed, of course—but Armin had won out. Even woozy and pale, his hand swaddled in a rapidly darkening washcloth. They had tossed them, in the end. 

Armin had always healed from these things. That had not changed: still he would hurt and bleed and heal. When it had been his own beaten and broken body, Eren had not given the miracle of its recovery much thought at all. Now, it seemed like the most important thing in the world, purely because Armin would benefit from it. 

Eren had tried to swallow that selfishness. He understood the enormity of the burden that Armin had to bear, and the consequences for humanity at large. But death came so easily. Without reason, without ceremony. His mother, Levi’s squad, Mr. Hannes. Life stole away with hardly any notice at all, as sudden and silent as a snuffed-out candle. Now, Armin’s would not be; now he could withstand that which would kill a mortal man, regardless of his size or strength or stamina. 

The relief was a shameful one. One best kept close to the chest. But late at night, and early in the morning, Eren would come back to that certain truth like an animal crawling back into the dark it knew so well. Armin was alive. Armin would live. And sleep would come on the heels of that thought, pulling Eren down into some bleak and empty place that only that desperate comfort could bring light to.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> me, writing any emotionally charged eren/armin scene: hm... what if they held HANDS or touched hands or something... and their fingers and palms touched... hands... holding... ugh, ground-breaking.
> 
> i'm very predictable. the scene in the forest, by the way, makes reference to this [old q&a](https://plain-dude.tumblr.com/post/107602983323/updates-for-isayama-q-a-in-bessatsu-feb-issue) that i've always loved. certainly i can see armin as the type to go scream at trees rather than get angry at anyone (hilarious but also rather depressing). 
> 
> anyway, thank you so much for reading thus far! hopefully i'll have the second part up within the week.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> cw: brief vomit mention in this chapter (nothing especially graphic).

Hanji sounded firm but not unkind. “Armin, there is no way to do this perfectly safely. There will always be risk involved. It was the same with Eren, and his first transformation was in an uncontrolled environment, even. I know it’s on a different scale—I mean, _completely_ —but we have safeguards set up. You and I spent the past month considering every possible thing that could go wrong! We’re in as good a place as we’re going to get.”

“I know,” Armin said. Not sullen or irate, just honest. “I’m… I’ve told myself that. I really am trying.”

Catching the conversation at first had been pure accident, though once Eren had realised what it was he was hearing, he might have strained his ears a little. The others were not much farther away. Engaged in their own discussions and preparations, the metallic rattle-clank of gear and gas canisters, they hadn’t noticed that Armin and Hanji had split from the group. Though maybe that was just tact. Eren was only close enough to hear by chance: on the way one of the horses had spooked and stumbled, and so Eren had offered to check her over. Corps’ horses, after all, were not cheap, and a thrown shoe this far out from Rose territory (and thus from a farrier) would have been a problem.

“I don’t doubt that,” Hanji said, and their tone changed: harsh but in an analytical way, their troubleshooting voice that Eren recognised well. He had been on the receiving end of it enough times. "Clearly you can heal fine, so it’s not, you know, a mechanical issue… And I’m not saying this to be cruel, but if what’s stopping you is nerves, only _you_ can help yourself through that. Whatever happens after you shift, trust that we’ll handle it.” Their speech lilted, then, and Eren could imagine their half-wild grin, though it was so rare as to be non-existent now. “That’s the Survey Corps’ way, right? Always thinking on our feet.”

Armin’s answer was more like a sigh given shape. “Yes, Commander.”

There was a pause. Meaningless to Eren so removed from them, but even he could sense its weight.

“… You know, that’s still taking some getting used to. That title.” Eren heard a gentle impact—a hand on the shoulder, most likely, and a near whisper. “It’s hard. I get it, I really do. But we have to be able do this.”

The words, said with such deliberate confessional care, made Eren wince. He was struck by the prickling awareness that this was something profoundly private; that his protective curiosity over Armin was merely invasive. But he couldn’t move from his crouch, near enough to the cart to be hidden by it.

“I…” That single syllable shook, but the silence that followed was not charged with fear. When Armin spoke again, there was steel in his quiet reply. “I can do it. I promise I will.”

A forceful exhalation, not quite a laugh. Hanji said, “Well. That’s a good answer, if nothing else.”

The sound of footsteps drew near. Eren’s most immediate instinct was to bolt, his guilt so glaring it felt like it could give him away, but there wasn’t the time. Instead, he tried to look either occupied or inconspicuous, staring down at his empty hands as if that would busy them. At first he thought he had escaped their notice, or at least any remark on that notice—he heard Hanji speaking with Levi, something brisk but indistinct—until Armin’s voice shocked him out of his skin.

“It shouldn’t take that long to check one horse for a loose shoe,” he said. 

Eren was flooded with icy shame, even as the blood rushed to his face. 

“I’m not as good with them as Historia. Or Jean, or Sasha,” he said, but he knew there wasn’t much point fumbling the truth. Not with Armin, and Eren was a terrible liar besides. “Sorry. It wasn’t on purpose.”

At least Armin did not look all that upset. He leaned over to scratch the horse’s withers, his nails rasping gently against her coat. “When you were imprisoned after Trost, Mikasa and I heard a lot of things we weren’t supposed to,” Armin said, shrugging. He glanced at Eren’s face. “Really, it’s okay. It’s not like you had your ear up against a locked door. It was hardly confidential.”

“Still, I should have just… I don’t know. Gone back over to the others. Or covered my ears, or something.”

Armin’s smile was thin, but it didn’t look forced. “You might have missed Hanji’s call, if you had,” he said wryly. “Oh… here they come.”

The warning made Eren shoot up out of his crouch so abruptly that he nearly lost his balance. At his dangerous sway, Armin caught his elbow in an anchoring grip. The touch was not unwelcome, not at all, but Armin reached for him with such immediate and unconscious ease—an ease that had been so absent lately—that Eren actually started. It was more of a mental flinch than a physical one, though, and Armin did not appear to register his surprise. His arm dropped back to his side only as the commander approached.

Hanji looked between them, but the curiosity was benign rather than wary. “Nice little confab, I hope,” they said, mostly genial. “We’re ready to head up, Eren. Armin?”

“Yes.”

“I’ll fire the signal when we’re in position, okay?” They stepped aside, an unsubtle gesture for Eren to follow. “Try and think cold thoughts!”

Armin did not laugh, and Hanji—despite being the one to say it—had only an awkward half-smile to offer. But Armin did nod, and the set of his mouth was firm, and in that brief moment before Hanji’s shadow fell over him and obscured his face from view, Eren saw in it some renewed determination.  
  


* * *

  
Like a good luck talisman turned in the hand, Eren kept thinking back on that resolute expression. Of course Armin could do this; when had he ever shrunk from duty? Armin had struggled often in his life—they all had—but he had always insisted on making his own way regardless of how cruel or callous the path. Maybe with some gnashing of teeth, but he had managed it all the same. Thinking of Armin’s shifting that way—as simply another obstacle he would have to overcome, and thus would overcome through sheer force of will—helped a little. Though _little_ was the operative word. It soothed Eren’s nerves only for the duration of the lift’s ascent. 

He had slept without much trouble on the back of their conversation last night, lit up by the memory of Armin’s smile even hours later, the simple and mindless grace of something so familiar. As always, it had silenced the storm. It had watered down the rage. But on approaching this familiar stretch of Wall Maria, Eren had realised there was no guarantee that their discussion would actually help Armin _to_ shift. A lousy pep talk was the most that he could offer—transforming now came to Eren too easily for him to provide any meaningful instruction. It wasn’t like taking a step or closing his eyes; it was more base than even those most basic things, innate as breathing, reflexive as a sneeze. He had no advice other than that which Armin already knew, and he was well-acquainted with the theoretical bones of it. An open wound, a goal in mind, and at least some energy to spare. 

Eren had wondered about the latter. Whether sleeping and eating badly could undermine Armin’s efforts quite this much. But then, Eren himself had shifted when starved and exhausted; he only had real trouble if he were healing from some extensive injury, or if it was his third or fourth attempt. As nice as it would have been, Eren doubted the problem would be solved simply by dropping extra rations into Armin’s lap. Few things were ever that easy.

Frankly, Eren could not have cared less if he never managed to shift. But he _did_ care if Armin destroyed himself—physically, mentally—trying over and over again. The guilt had already eaten away at so much of him; if it went on any longer, there would be nothing left. And then there was the pressure from not just the Corps, but the government too. A weapon that failed to fire was the same as having no weapon at all.

“You need a piss or something? Quit fidgeting so much.”

The curt, crude snap of Levi’s voice at least made Eren stop pacing, but more unnerving was that he’d hardly been aware he was doing it in the first place. Most of his wits were taken up with not chewing his own fingers off. 

Eren had never been a good worrier. Armin had always worried enough for him and Mikasa both (and thank god—it had saved their lives plenty of times, that overactive imagination), but Eren could not turn it to any use. It only made him miserable to be at the mercy of his own fear. There was one thought in particular that he kept circling back to with compulsive horror: the simple alternative if Armin were entirely unable to transform. A last resort, surely, one it was hard to imagine Hanji would allow—but the possibility was magnetic in its sheer awfulness. No matter how unlikely. After all, Paradis had no more serum, and there were so few viable candidates. Who else could bear this power—Connie’s mother? A random titan beyond Wall Maria? One of the three specimens Hanji had hauled alive from Trost’s guillotine for research purposes? Even to think it felt ridiculous. And yet, it was impossible not to.

Eren looked out at Shiganshina, trying to pull his mind from this pathetic spiral. Visibility was much better tonight. The light of the moon and the stars washed everything of its colour, but he could make out collapsed rooftops, rafters jutting upward like split ribs. The debris from the wall, so far below in that dollhouse-town, could have been pea gravel. Even after so long, looking at it turned his stomach. Shiganshina had never released its hold over him. Teeming with memories both bright and dark, vague and vibrant—his own, but now sometimes also someone else’s, an endless spool spinning out this uneasy tapestry. It was becoming increasingly difficult to unravel any one thread from the others.

The aura of Armin’s lantern was less apparent than it had been the night before. Still it snagged Eren’s attention as his gaze moved across the landscape. Impossible not to notice when it was otherwise so dark and empty. How long had it been now? How long had it felt to Armin? Each silent second felt like an age, though not much time had passed since Hanji had fired the acoustic flare: still its piercing squeal rang in his ears, the acrid scent of gunpowder tickling his throat.

If Eren had realised the possible consequences of Armin’s inability to shift, then Armin most certainly had. That he might be suffering the same dread alone made Eren freshly restless. The urge to be with him, to speak the words and watch the light fill Armin’s face, hummed in Eren’s bones. _You can do this_ , he thought. Despite his fear, the swelling panic that pressed him in on all sides, there was no doubt in Eren’s mind that Armin could. _I know you can do it. If I can, then you—_

Light. A pure and blinding burst like a flashbang, lancing the sky. In the immediate confusion, Eren’s mind parsed it as a flare, but the light was greenish; it died in seconds rather than lingering overhead. With it, there was the noise of rolling thunder. Eren felt the odd, intense sensation of air displaced—outward and inward at once—that even with the distance blew his hair back from his face. Beneath the rush of noise, he heard a rippling shock, and then a half-hysterical cheer as Hanji sprinted across the wall. But Eren barely noticed them.

Watching the Colossus form was surreal. Shifting always was, though Eren had never had the chance to observe the process outside of battle, outside of himself. For a sixty-metre titan to manifest out of thin air was mind-bending anyway; to see it so clearly raised the hair at the nape of his neck. 

It was impossibly huge. Tall enough, just, to look over the wall. To look over at them, stationed a safe distance away. Eren had thought before that he might feel anger at the sight of it, an animal reaction to a learned and nurtured hatred. But Armin’s Colossus looked too different. Raw and skinless, yet its face was distinct. Corpse-like, almost, as though its nose had been sheared down to the skull. Sad eyes set deep beneath its brow. Its skeletal structure was exposed in places where Bertholdt’s had been only rippling muscle. Steam rose from it in drifting, thickening columns; they seemed to glow from within, picked out by the light of the moon. Eren felt heat wash over his skin—evident though not oppressive—even this far away.

Armin was in there, Eren thought. It struck him with startling clarity. Secreted away in its nape, flesh and sinew corded to Armin’s own.

“Eren!” Hanji cut through his thoughts, snapping their fingers in his face. “Keep on your toes in case we need your hardening as a shield, okay?” They raised their voice to address the squad. “All right. First team, we’re heading over. Levi will recover him—Mikasa, you’re on standby. If it gets too hot, pull back. It looks like he’s not releasing much more steam than usual for the moment, at least.”

The closer they got, the more unreal it seemed. Eren felt no fear—there was awe, numbing and stupid—but mostly he felt only incredible relief. Armin had done it. Down there, alone in the dark, the flesh of his palm split open and his blood spotting the stones below: he had found the strength to surrender. Eren could have cried. He wanted to cry, his throat swollen shut by the urge. He wanted to tear Armin out of that thing himself and hold him, no matter how badly it burned. Eren would always heal from it. Armin could strip the flesh from his arms to the bone, and then scorch his bones black to the marrow, and still Eren would not let him go.  
  
  
  
  
Steam enveloped them like a hanging mist. It lay a veil of humid damp on Eren’s face that cooled as soon as it settled. The heat had grown intense but not unbearable—not yet, anyway. What had been a freezing night was now almost sultry. 

The Colossus itself did very little. It was sluggish even when its host was cognisant, though as they had skirted the wall, its head had turned as if to track them. An ink-blue eye, marble-like, rolled in that vast skull. Its limbs had not moved at all. Fine dexterity was well beyond such bulk; the Colossus' distorted, trunk-like feet too huge, maybe, and its narrow arms too long, to do much damage in so short a time. Watching its strange and solemn face, Eren had wondered just how aware Armin was, if he was aware at all. It was impossible to imagine what it must have felt like. People seemed small and fragile enough when Eren shifted into a fifteen-metre class; to Armin, they must have looked like nothing more than scuttling insects.

“Sorry, Levi," Hanji said. They grimaced. "Better safe than sorry, you know?”

Levi glanced at the two buckets of water that were set in front of him. He clicked his tongue, but then he rolled his shoulders, an acquiescence. “Eh. Everyone's sweating like pigs in a kitchen, anyway.”

And without hesitation, Levi turned one bucket after the other over his head. The water made a hard smack as it hit the stone. There was a pair of reinforced leather gloves that Hanji tried to shove at him, like those that blacksmiths wore for the forge, but Levi flatly refused. 

“No chance. I'd rather take the risk with the burns than make my fingers stupid.”

Hanji’s grimace turned into a full-blown scowl. “If you lose all the skin off your hands then _stupid fingers_ will be the least of your worries.”

But Levi was already off. Water flecked the ground where he ran. “You can always tell my corpse ‘I told you so’,” he called, and he snapped off into the air before Hanji could reply.

“Ugh. You wouldn’t think I had any authority whatsoever.” The gloves were tossed aside. “I don’t know why I expected anything else.”

It was a needless precaution, anyway. The steam was persistent, but it stopped short of stinging the skin, and it only looked so dramatic due to the cold; it was nothing like the aggressive surging heat that Bertholdt had sent out against them. By the way Levi moved, you wouldn’t think the steam was there at all. He spiralled up that mass of raw muscle with dizzying grace, a dark shape whipping through white vapour. He vanished only as he turned the curve of the Colossus’ neck, the air so dense there that it was opaque. A breathless few seconds held them in silence: Eren, his hand halfway to his mouth, the others behind him in a watchful huddle. 

Then—suddenly, seemingly out of nowhere—Levi was tearing towards them as if born from the sky. He landed heavily but he did not stumble, not even with a limp body hauled in against his side. His left hand was thrust in beneath the straps of Armin's harness, a secure brace at his chest. Only his right was free to use the manoeuvre gear. Even mindless with relief, Eren felt an old stirring of awe at such strength and skill.

"Shitting hell, he's _scalding_ ," Levi hissed. It punctured some of the wonder. 

Water dripped down Levi’s nose from his hair. Shiganshina, ruined as it was, looked no worse for wear if you overlooked the immense remains dissolving at the edge of it. Wall Maria was blessedly intact—and so was Armin, each limb and digit accounted for, even his clothes in one piece. With them both unharmed, the surreal chaotic calm of the scene could have been funny. But Eren felt no urge to laugh, gutted by such helpless, desperate gratitude that he could not even speak.

Mikasa and Eren went to him at once, and Levi let her bear Armin’s weight. He was right—the heat coming from Armin might not have been blistering anymore, but it wasn’t far off. In the night air, even with the clammy warmth, he steamed as if he had just emerged from a sauna. Eren kneeled before him, his hands held uselessly aloft. Proof of the transformation was etched into his face. The marks made Armin look more solemn even in this haze; deep grooves that echoed the bones of his cheek, his jaw; the banded hollows that ringed his eyes. Were his own so dramatic after shifting? Eren touched his face as though they could have risen there in sympathy.

There was a great rattling breath. Armin’s chest shuddered with the force of it.

“Armin?” Mikasa said urgently. Sweat shone on her face, but she did not let Armin go. He stirred against her.

Hanji was not far from them, though Eren hadn’t realised just how close until they spoke nearly in his ear. “Armin, can you hear me?” they said, the words low but loud and clear. “Do you know where you are?”

Armin gave no reply. His breathing was shallow, ragged, though the glazed look he wore was receding. He made a vain attempt to stand. Mikasa helped him upright immediately, heaving his arm over her shoulder.

“I…” Armin croaked. Then, nothing. There was a tense hush as they waited for him to continue.

“Are you okay?” Hanji said, frowning now. “Water? Do you need—”

Armin lurched sideways, wrenching free from Mikasa’s hold. His shirt was sweated through, his throat and hands flushed with residual heat even as his face was white as paper. There was a peculiar light coming over him. Flat and baulked, rather than lucid. He opened his mouth as if to answer, but he made no sound. And then, Armin vomited all over his boots.  
  
  
  
  
It was not the most dramatic show of sick that Eren had ever seen. Armin’s meagre appetite was apparent even in this: it had been mostly water, and he had vomited in a tidy fashion. His own feet were the solitary victim.

Now he was hunched over in a semi-crouch. As Eren watched, he squeezed a directed stream from his water skin at the leather uppers of his boots. There had been a rush of attention immediately after—cloths offered, water, a bucket (just in case). Armin had not been ill again, though, and gradually he had surfaced from his feverish stupor. 

Hanji had hovered at first like an excited, anxious parent, but after the initial flurry of questions—how do you feel? nauseous still? do you remember what it was like in there, could you see us?—they allowed him some peace. Certainly Armin seemed tired, and yes, his complexion a little waxen, but he seemed otherwise well. The exhaustion almost suited him: it stripped away the worst of that edgy fear, as though he had no energy left to waste on it. Sitting there, rinsing vomit from his boots, Armin looked plainly content. It took all of Eren’s willpower not to stare at him in open amazement.

“How are you doing?” Eren said. It felt strange—in a good way—to ask the question so easily. Only a day ago that would have been impossible; it would have pissed Armin off. Or, worse, he would have gone blank and untouchable.

Armin was slow to look up at him. Not reluctant, just a belated reaction from the leaden tiredness. He nodded once. “Okay now. Honestly, not as bad as I thought I would feel, besides, you know…” The empty water skin sagged in his hand as he gestured with it. “But then, I didn’t do anything. I wasn’t even in there very long.”

“Long enough,” Eren said firmly. “And anyway, the most important thing is that you shifted. Considering how enormous the Colossus is, you have to get used to it before we can try anything more complicated.”

“Yeah.” Armin did not sound wholly convinced, but it was a reasonable concern rather than a terrified one, and he let out a single dry laugh. “If I feel this tired already, though, I’ll probably be falling asleep on my feet next time.”

“I’d carry you,” Eren said, a little too quickly. It wasn’t that unusual an offer—so many times Armin had hauled Eren out of his titan, his eyes the first bright thing in a dimmed world, his voice in Eren’s ear and the sense of him, sturdy at Eren’s back despite his size—but suddenly it made Eren feel hot and bristling. Even though he had been the one to say it. He changed the subject. “What were you thinking of when you shifted? What helped?” 

There was a thoughtful lull. Armin’s gaze drifted from Eren’s, tracking a pale plume down to the evaporating corpse of the Colossus. It had disappeared almost completely within the steam, now; its decay was gradual, though still so much faster than you’d expect from something that size.

“Yesterday, when you—” Armin paused, checking for an audience before he continued, “—when you cut my hand. Did that remind you of anything?”

The question was unexpected, and for a moment Eren could only stare. _Had_ it reminded him of anything? All Eren had cared about at the time was the bright and needling present: how the dark had cast itself over Armin’s hair, his eyes; the blood so hot in his hand that it felt like liquid fire; the metallic taste of his own mouth, and how much he had wanted. Not even any one thing in particular. Eren had just _wanted_ , so intensely it had stolen his breath. 

But that wasn’t what Armin was looking for. Eren searched his mind for any rising memory. There was some panic pinching at him now—what had he forgotten that Armin considered important enough to mention? The idea that something like that could have slipped beyond his recall was deeply unsettling.

“It’s fine if you don’t,” Armin went on, apparently unaware of Eren’s turmoil. “I only remembered when I was lying awake last night.” He gave a shy, shaky laugh. “We can’t have been older than eight years old. Younger, probably. I must’ve seen it in a book or something.”

Armin spoke in an embarrassed rush, but the words came easy, a comfortable admission. Perhaps that owed to his tiredness, the careful filter falling away for just a moment. It was pleasing, even if the clues brought nothing to Eren’s mind. 

“It was this—blood oath, or something. You know, where you each cut yourself.” Armin blushed a little deeper. He lifted his forearm against his face and let out another breathless noise—flustered, amused. “And you press the cuts together. Really, god knows what I had been reading...”

And there, it surfaced: misty with time but sharp and sudden enough that it made Eren’s fingers tingle. That’s right—by the river, far enough from the centre of town that no one came there but fishermen and feral cats. Armin had been the one to mention it; if he ever read anything of interest, Eren was sure to know about it soon enough. But Eren had been the one to suggest they try it, bolstered by simple affection and a child’s conviction. Sneaking the vegetable knife from the kitchen had been easy enough, and though Armin had winced at the nick in the soft pad of his thumb, he had not cried.

It had felt so important, even then. Some commitment that Eren had not quite understood, neither the reality of it nor how it had made him feel. To his seven-year-old self, those feelings had been unremarkable. He had just believed that Armin was like that—could do that—always showing him some novel and wonderful thing that no one else was worthy of. Even at that young age, Armin had been able to pry open that unknown hollow within and fill it fit to burst. 

“I remember,” Eren said, and he was surprised at the throaty sound of his own voice. He coughed. “We were seven, actually.”

Armin turned to look at him, and though he was blushing still, some tender awe showed in his face. Eren felt his own ears grow hot. At least that could be explained by the lingering heat in the air.

Armin shook his head as if that might knock loose his embarrassed smile. “We were such dramatic children,” he said softly. He stood from his crouch, a little uneven on his feet. “Anyway. That’s what it was.”

Eren went to steady him, but the words gave him pause. “Huh?”

“What I thought about when I was trying to transform. I mean, I thought about a few things. That I had to shift. I thought about what it might feel like, sort of… envisioning it. But it helped my nerves to remember back then. You. And Mikasa…” Armin cleared his throat. It was rare to see him struggle for words; it looked like even he wasn’t sure what he was trying to say. “It helped.”

All Eren could do was blink, even as he set his palm at Armin’s back. The warmth that rose from him now was a human one, evident beneath his clammy shirt but not unusual. Finally Eren managed, “And it worked."

“... Yes,” Armin said.

“Well.” He began speaking without thinking of a follow-up. “That’s good. For future use.”

Armin did not move out from under Eren’s hand. It should not have felt like such a triumph, but it did. He tilted his head, watching with his usual intensity despite the exhaustion lying so heavily on him.

“It is. And I only thought of it because of last night. I’m not saying that it was a good idea... but thank you.”

The air felt suddenly very different. Thin and sere where it had been thick with humidity. Even Eren’s own skin felt different, as if it were too tight and too large all at once. Armin’s face was so close. There, beneath his eyes, the shallow streaks of shifting remained. So faded now that it seemed they could be brushed away with the touch of a finger. 

“No,” Eren said. He could hardly bring himself to meet Armin’s stare. It took effort even to speak. But he had to: this truth was too important to let slip away. “You managed it all on your own.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this fic could also be titled: eren and the many times that armin has cut his hand. a couple years ago, my beta was reading a poem of mine (not even fandom-related) and she said, "you really do have a thing about hands, don't you?" i had zero comeback—i really am just that transparent.
> 
> thanks so much for reading so far! every comment and kudos brightened my day. i think i said this was going to have two parts originally (oops), but there's going to be another chapter at least. and i might create a series for some related bits and pieces. i hope you continue to enjoy reading them!


	3. Chapter 3

The weary peace that Armin had worn on top of the wall— _around me_ , Eren thought, with some dark and secret satisfaction—thinned to exhaustion once they were back on the ground. He was quiet as they each piled on to the cart, but it was an easy quiet rather than a hollow one. This time, Armin did not refuse Jean’s hand when offered it; this time, the only shadow that fell over him was tiredness. He settled heavily on Eren’s left, shoulder to shoulder, their arms pressed alongside like a single seam. It should not have been so pleasing. It was no different than how they had sat together any number of times. But still it stirred that old warmth enough that it felt new again, hot coals shifted by the iron. 

The atmosphere was changed from the night before, too. A little strained, though not much—more restless. Sasha and Connie both looked like they were struggling to keep a handle on their curiosity; they stole frequent glances with the usual lack of subtlety. Not that Eren was any better. He had never made such an intense study of his boots as when he was trying not to stare at Armin next to him. 

The silence did not last five minutes.

“Do you remember those first few weeks we started manoeuvre practice?” Jean said, so suddenly that everyone—even Mikasa—started. “I don’t think there was anyone that _didn’t_ get sick.”

“Ugh, don’t,” Sasha said. She grimaced at the memory, or maybe just at the idea of it, though only seconds later she lit up again: “Oh, there’s no way Mikasa was! You weren’t sick once, were you?”

It was hard to tell with the angle, and with her scarf layered nearly up to her mouth, but by the bunching of her cheek Mikasa must have been smiling. “I don’t really remember,” she said.

Jean would not be deterred from the topic.

“Daz could hardly get off the ground without losing his lunch,” he went on, “especially after lunch. I remember once he heaved so hard that he burst a blood vessel in his right eye. He looked like something out of a penny dreadful.”

There was an elaborate groan. Connie flopped his head back over his shoulders. “Would you quit talking about it? You’re ruining my appetite.”

“You shouldn’t have an appetite,” snapped Jean. “You ate mine _and_ your own field rations earlier, god knows how. Those things sit in your stomach like a brick.”

“I asked first, didn’t I? Anyway, I’m a growing boy,” Connie said, a little smugly, and he jerked his thumb at his puffing chest.

“By, what, a mil every six months? I’m pretty sure that’s just your hair.”

Connie’s reply was lost to Eren. He felt the shaking of Armin’s shoulder first and heard him second: a short and breathless laugh, as if it had been surprised out of him. It wasn’t especially loud, but with the weight of the dark—and with his quiet up till now—the sound of it rang through Eren’s ears like a shot. 

The others must have noticed; the bickering stopped before it could begin in earnest. There was a tangible thawing, the easy release of some unrealised tension. It wasn’t like they had treated Armin all that differently—Jean, Connie, Sasha. Maybe just enough that Armin had noticed and stepped back in polite parallel, a concession to his own belief that he was… wrong, or too changed, or nothing more than an unpleasant reminder. The distance wasn’t deliberate. It surely wasn’t callous. It was more fumbling than that, the same stunned blankness as when the rifle was in your hands and you had no idea at who you should be aiming. Armin must have known that. But knowing was one thing, and internalising that quite another.

The lull was comfortable, uncomplicated, but the staticky sense of something unspoken remained. By the frantic bounce of Connie’s leg, it wouldn’t remain unspoken for long. 

“What did it feel like?” 

Expecting it made no difference. Eren jerked at the question as if he’d been slapped, and close as they were, he felt Armin’s own flinching surprise. Connie had said it with a casual look on his face, his tone schooled steady—more like he was asking after the time or the weather—but there was no missing the nervous light in his eyes.

For a long moment, Armin offered no answer. Eren heard Mikasa inhale hard through her nose, hard enough that it stirred his hair.

“Connie,” she said flatly. 

It wasn’t a threat, not at all, but Mikasa had that uncanny ability to say so much with a name alone. It was the same voice as when she untangled Eren from a fight or insisted on taking a chore off his hands—one that allowed no argument. At least Eren was used to it. Connie, meanwhile, was not: he winced hard, a full-body cringe that had him lifting his feet up on to their toes. Before he could squeak out an apology, Armin spoke across them.

“It’s fine,” he said, and he tilted his head in that familiar thoughtful way. Until, at last, he shrugged a shoulder. “But I wasn’t really conscious of anything. It just felt… heavy, kind of. And hot.”

This was briefly considered. Sasha scratched at her scalp, loosing some hair from its tie. The headwind got hold of it, framing her face in an unruly tangle. 

“Hot?” she repeated. “Hot… I get it.” And she nodded sagely. “That explains why you were sick, I bet.”

Connie blinked at her. “Eh? What’s that?”

She blinked back at him. “Well… it’s like a bath, isn’t it? You sit in a hot bath for ages, you get dizzy.” She spoke with such confidence, as if her logic were bulletproof and Connie was a fool to ask. “I bet that’s what it’s like. Right, Armin?”

There was a forceful scoff. Every head swivelled in its direction. “Oh, yeah, ‘cause you’re such an expert in these things,” Jean said acidly, folding his arms. “And when was the last time you even _had_ a hot bath? Never mind having the time to sit in one long enough to make yourself sick. Shit, I’m lucky to get twenty seconds worth of lukewarm water out of the barracks’ lousy showers.”

Sasha frowned. “Huh?”

“She meant like a hot spring,” Connie offered. “Armin—that’s exactly what it’s like, yeah?”

“Oh.” Armin lifted an eyebrow, his expression one of quiet amusement. “Maybe.”

“As if you’ve ever been to a damn hot spring in your life,” Jean said. He barked an incredulous laugh. “Just been up north for some R’n’R with the gentry, have you, Connie? You’d fit right in.”

Connie’s frown was near identical to Sasha’s. “… Huh?”

The conversation quickly devolved, and Eren was too tired by now to keep up with it. But inane as it was, and more so with the gravity of the night’s operation, he was grateful for the ease of it, of them. The persistent tension of these past few months had never reached unbearable, but Eren had felt its sting as though it were his own fault. The way people had looked at him when his power had first manifested—when he had torn through Stohess after Annie—when so many lives had been laid at his feet just so Eren could walk clear of the carnage left in his wake—it only ever took one glimpse of Armin’s uneasy manner for it to come rushing to the fore. 

Now, watching Armin watch the others, Eren felt those frayed nerves settling. It could have been years ago, each of them worn down from a hard hike under Shadis’ command, maybe, and Connie’s question some idle wondering that Armin could not _not_ answer. Even as his chin would dip down to his chest, he would provide an explanation so precise and so thorough that it would send everyone else to sleep. Not that Armin had ever seemed to mind. As his audience would dwindle, he would either turn his attention solely on Eren and Mikasa or he’d cut himself off with a yawn, and at that point sleep would be inevitable.

It was only predictable because Eren knew the pattern—and Armin—so well. And he recognised it now, too, by Armin’s sagging shoulders, the change in the cadence of his breathing. No sooner had he noticed than he felt the pressure against his side increase. Not by much, but enough to know that Armin had fallen asleep. The regular rhythm of the cart made it irresistible; Eren’s own eyelids felt leaden.

It wouldn’t do to wake him. Eren knew the bone-deep fatigue of shifting, and often only adrenaline had driven him through it. He didn’t fight these days, but he didn’t transform any less than before. The occasional experiment of his own, or repairing the wall or Hanji’s guillotines, or moving cargo like a glorified mule—Eren would never feel tired at the time, but once he was back on the ground the exhaustion would grow so vast and so quickly that it seemed a miracle he could stand at all. Sometimes Eren would feel like he could sleep for days. Sometimes, he did. 

The cart creaked as it lurched over uneven ground. Armin did not stir. Eren allowed himself to look at his face, free from that answering—and questioning—gaze. If he were awake, Armin might have found it overbearing, though he would never say so. It would show only in the tiny pinch between his eyebrows, the sharp way his breath left him. Asleep, there was no chance of that; the upset that had drawn his face up so pained and pale had softened. Armin looked young in a way that he hadn’t in a long time. Eren felt a pang of nostalgia, though it was sad rather than fond. Something had been lost along the way, he knew. Something that could not be taken back, no matter how desperately he reached for it. It only felt further away with how the tips of his fingers would glance against the surface every time he tried.

Armin’s slack hand rested against Eren’s own at the edge of his lap. Knuckle nudged to knuckle, an incidental touch, easily explained and easily ignored. His breathing was deep, steady, slow. Eren wondered whether he dreamt, and if he did, of what. After shifting Eren slept like the dead, though his dreams would often equal the intensity of his exhaustion. Increasingly now the nightmares were awful. They seemed so real, the veil between dreaming and waking worn too thin. Some of them _were_ real. A future that was blurred and overbright by turns, a past that was not his own—a familiar world distorted through someone else’s eyes. His mother’s hair a glossy spill on her shoulder, seen from a height that Eren had never reached while she was alive; the kitchen, darker and more cramped than Eren’s memory made it; and even himself, so small at nine years old, and eyes so huge in a puppy fat face, that it wasn’t like looking at himself at all. 

As if sensing Eren’s disquiet, Armin murmured in his sleep. His face remained smooth and untroubled. His nose wrinkled only at the brush of his own hair when he breathed in. As gently as he could with his shaking fingers, Eren tucked it back behind Armin’s ear. He was afraid to sleep—afraid of what waited for him there when he did—but the warm and constant weight of Armin at his side was a grounding relief, as miraculous as it was commonplace. 

Eren closed his eyes. His thoughts, adrift, wicked away into a deep and welcome nothing.  
  


* * *

  
The arrival at basecamp came too soon, and with a brutal jerk that nearly threw the others opposite out of their seats. A rude awakening, but an effective one. At their exaggerated groan, the driver—another ex-Garrison member and older than them by some ten years—mumbled an apology with a chagrined look on his face.

There were packs to be unloaded, all that was considered too valuable to risk leaving on top of the wall: several sets of spare gear, gas canisters, a clattering case of extra blades. They unfolded themselves slowly, stiff from the cold and crouching on the cart. It took a little nudging encouragement to rouse Armin from the deadweight of his sleep. Eren was reluctant to do so, for Armin’s sake and his selfish own: when was the last time they had been so close, so unself-conscious of it? 

Still, there would be more chances. As Eren watched the glaze of sleep leave Armin’s eyes, as they filled instead with recognition—with utter non-surprise at Eren’s presence there when he awoke—he felt that calm take root in his bones again. 

“Already?” Armin said, like a child unseated from a dream. His voice sleep-hoarse, blinking owlish and bleary.

“Yup.” Eren took his arm, freely offered, and heaved Armin upright. “Too soon, huh.”

Hanji would want to speak with him. They had made that clear back on top of Wall Maria, though they had couched it in generous terms: a quick debriefing, only for as long as Armin wanted or was able (or was conscious, more honestly). Without their old intensity, Hanji was not as overwhelming as when Eren had been the subject, true—but he had caught a fleeting sense of that enthusiasm, talking with Armin. Maybe in the light of that single dark eye, or with the way Hanji’s hands had shaped the air as they spoke, each question rising in volume and pitch. 

It seemed like it would always be that way, sometimes. Chasing after the phantoms of the past, the future ever at their backs. Eren felt the passing of time as hot breath on the nape of his neck—the tightening stranglehold, a hungry mouthful of teeth close enough to count. He saw the ghosts Armin walked with, much as Armin must have felt them.

His wrist slipped from Eren’s grip. For a second, a fraction of a second, he was gripped by fathomless panic—but Armin had only gone to haul himself out of the cart. 

“We’ll do this,” he heard Mikasa say; she’d caught Armin helping to unpack. Her head dipped in towards his, a tender gesture. “There’s not much to carry. We can do it in one trip, anyway.”

The logic was sound enough that even Armin would struggle to find fault. Indeed, he didn’t: Armin sighed but he did not protest, and as Eren watched he saw that Mikasa’s hand on his arm was not shrugged away. She broke from him long enough to prop one crate against her front and to balance another on her shoulder, and together they walked off into the dark. 

Eren lifted one of the packs from the bed of the cart. It wasn’t as heavy as he was expecting, and he was tired besides: as he swung it over his back, it narrowly missed smacking Jean in the head.

“Watch it, you ass,” he groused. Milder than expected or deserved, really, considering the near concussion, though at this stage even Eren could tell that the irritation was more habit than it was sincere.

They tramped towards the outpost’s temporary storage—a repurposed grain shed in which they kept the horses, too. Ahead, at such a distance that they were out of earshot, Hanji was talking with Armin. Must have caught him after stabling their horse, Eren thought. Though it was difficult to make out his expression, Armin did not appear put out, and together they made for the huts. By the time Jean and Eren were at the threshold of the store, they had disappeared from view. 

He turned to Jean once they had unburdened themselves. It was too deliberate to pretend it was incidental; Jean looked at him expectantly when Eren hesitated to speak.

Finally, quietly, he said, “Thanks, Jean.”

There was a sudden gust of breath, like a sigh but not quite. Jean shoved a crate along with his foot until it was aligned with the others. “What for?” he said.

Eren bit his lip. “Just… for talking.” He looked back at the open doors of the shed, though they were alone but for Sasha and Connie. Talking about Armin, even implicitly—even casually—still felt disloyal. Eren swallowed around the thickness of his tongue. “For treating him the same as always.”

Jean raised an eyebrow, and for a moment he seemed to chew on what to say. Like Eren, his gaze slid to the empty entrance and back again. 

“I didn’t do anything worth the thanks,” he said at last. “Anyway, you’d be clever to do the same. It’s not a mother he needs right now, is it? You three… you’re as good as family, anyway. I mean, Mikasa, I get, but you? Really?” Jean scoffed, but beneath the façade of the tease, a more genuine look—one Eren could not pin down—fleeted across his face. It was not lit with any hot emotion. “There’s no one else within these walls who could understand what he’s going through quite as well as you, and vice versa. So both of you should quit looking so maudlin and get back to the creepy symbiosis already.”  
  
  
  
  
Eren felt so conspicuous that his stomach jumped at every sound. Even with the late hour, it wasn’t forbidden or even unusual to be up, and the Corps’ regimented routine had fallen away without the structures to keep it in place. From the windows of several huts, a ghostly light cast out against the dark. Someone Eren couldn’t recognise was sitting by the unroused fire, its dying flicker throwing just enough shadow to hide their face. And every so often, Hanji would careen across camp as if struck by some urgent inspiration. 

To Eren’s relief, they did not head again for Armin’s quarters. The commander had left him some time ago; Eren had sat outside purely to see when, and still he lingered on the half-rotten porch. Staring hopelessly, hopefully, at Armin’s door. It gave him no hints, no advice, and it certainly didn’t offer up Armin on its step.

There was the pale glow of a lamp reaching from his window, too. After they had left, Hanji had sent someone to Armin’s door with a basin of water and some flannel cloth, and that had given Eren reason enough not to rush over. If he were washing up, it would be rude to disturb him. And thus, Eren had waited—was waiting—as he tried not to count the seconds and failed miserably. 

Eren had been so tired earlier. Now sleep felt like a foreign concept, an impossible ask. It was too important to talk to Armin tonight—though for what even Eren didn’t know, as he had no words in his mind except for those that Jean had given him. Just… it was just that he had to. While there was this chance. Since Armin had shifted successfully, Eren had the uneasy sense that things would only get busier, especially with the limited span of the days ahead. 

That thought was enough to impel him to stand. This was no different than going to talk with Armin in the barracks, Eren told himself, no different than sitting with him at mess. Nobody would notice Eren going over, and it hardly mattered if they did. He was well within his rights to. But no matter his rationalising, the coldness of this fear—something like fear, anyway, that made his fists clench, his chest seize—refused to loosen its grip.

Managing it on his own was possible. He could dampen it down to near-nothing if he really tried; Eren had choked down fear so thick that it had made his gorge rise. But it would be easier if Armin were with him. He would not even have to say or do anything, and Eren would not have asked that of him in the first place. The simple fact of his presence had always been more than enough.  
  


* * *

  
The basin sat empty in the middle of the room, a sodden cloth hanging over its edge. Around it, a dark ring of water had sunk into the wooden floorboards. Eren could see where Armin had been by the prints of his bare feet, tracking from the basin to the window—he must have tossed the water—and back again, to where he stood now. 

Eren was grateful for his dawdling indecision: it looked like Armin had only just finished. His hair was not wet, but Eren could tell by how it was pushed back from his forehead that he had combed it through with damp fingers. Armin’s clothes were freshly changed, his shirt untucked, a little loose. The sight of him caught some rising feeling in Eren’s throat. 

“Sorry,” he began, “I didn’t think you’d be… I didn’t mean to…” —to what? Interrupt? But Armin was done, and Eren had knocked, and Armin had asked him to come in as soon as he’d recognised Eren’s voice through the door.

Armin swatted the air. “It’s alright. I felt pretty gross, so,” and here he gestured to the basin. He leant back against the edge of the old cot set by the wall, and there was a long pause as they considered each other. “You look tired,” Armin said.

“Yeah.” Eren had to swallow before he could speak again. “So do you. I mean, if I’m tired, you must be exhausted.”

The cot Armin sat on was bare, its slats bowed out from countless nights spent supporting whoever had lived here so long ago. The preparatory team had removed all home comforts from the huts they now occupied: moulding linens and clothing and food, everything that had been abandoned in a rush five years ago, whether the people had been evacuated or attacked before news of the wall’s breach had reached them. The latter, most likely, considering how close they were to Shiganshina.

They had left the old bedclothes heaped at the village’s edge. Tall as a haystack, and so riddled with damp that they were rotten through. Hanji had used it as a landmark when they had first arrived. Eren had found it unsettling, but it would have been worse to face a dressed and rumpled bed as if its occupant had risen from it that morning. The barren frame on its own didn’t disturb him so much, and especially not with Armin there. When he touched the empty space to his left, Eren did not hesitate to join him.

At first, Armin said nothing. There was meaning even in that silence, in the quiet study he made of Eren’s face, though it wasn’t uncomfortable. With nearly anyone else, such scrutiny would have chafed. With Armin, it was easy to bear. 

Suddenly, Armin asked, “What did it look like?”

It took Eren a moment to untwist the question, and it took longer still to think of what to say. Though if Armin was nervous about the answer, it was not obvious in his face. Only his voice betrayed him: a little too even, his calm a forced and flimsy thing. From here, Eren could see the hairs rising on his forearm. 

What could he say? It had looked like what it was, like a skinless titan of sixty metres. So tall, taller than you could think possible. It was hard to recognise anything of Armin in his memory of it, and even the marks that had scored his face had faded almost to nothing. Only the faintest impression remained under his eyes. And there it was, again—the odd urge to touch them. As if to check that they were real, or to check that Armin were real, by the blood that beat beneath the fine skin of his temple. 

“It did look like… like Bertholdt’s, kind of,” said Eren. A risky statement, but he saw none of the startled misery on Armin’s face that had been so common before. “But you—it was thinner. And some of its skeleton is exposed. Here.” Eren reached forward without thinking, his fingers nearly touching the column of Armin’s throat. “You can see its spine.”

“Through the neck?”

“Yeah. And its mouth—its, uh, lips are intact.” Eren’s eyes were drawn there, to Armin’s mouth, and it took some effort to look away. “I wondered whether you might be able to speak, at first. But with your throat like that…”

Armin nodded. “The anatomy necessary to make speech isn’t there. Although, it didn’t seem like Annie could speak either, and her face… well, it was very human-like,” he mused. 

“Oh, right. That’s true,” said Eren. He remembered Annie’s scream—a violent thing that had stabbed him through, more animal than man—and tried to forget it. “It would have suited you if it could speak, though.”

Armin smiled a tired sort of smile. “Do you think so? I think it would be scary, actually. Something that huge, imagine how loud it would be.” He fell again into thoughtful silence, but he wasn’t done; when he began again, he spoke very softly. “It sounds like it looks scary enough.”

“I’m not good at describing it,” Eren said. He made a frustrated noise, tearing through his thoughts for something worth salvaging. “You should get someone to draw it. You should get _Jean_ to draw it. He’s half-decent, isn’t he?”

There was a flicker of amusement on Armin’s face. 

“He’s better than half-decent. Better than decent, even.”

“His head doesn’t need any more inflating,” Eren said, but he hadn’t the heart to make it sound remotely venomous. “Seriously, you should ask him. I only know what mine looks like because of all those sketches Hanji had done…”

Eren felt the stumble only as he heard himself make it. Trailing off was worse than just saying the name, but before he could pick up the dropped thread, Armin caught it for him.

“By the vice-captain? Hanji has loads of them in their office, scattered all over the place. Like most everything else. But they actually have some of them framed.”

“Oh,” Eren breathed. He had a feeling that it owed more to the artist than the subject, and the thought made his stomach sink a further few inches. 

The gentle nudge of Armin’s elbow felt like a more generous kindness than Eren deserved. He was not smiling when Eren looked at him, but the emotion on his face was a soft and open one. Not easy to put a name to—maybe, like Eren, he felt that same sadness and guilt, gratitude and relief—but it was so confused, so enormous, that it just ended up feeling sore. Something let swell too long, an abscess from a splinter.

“I’ll ask Jean,” said Armin, and he nudged Eren again. “I’m sure the commander will want some drawn records, anyway.”

Eren nodded. He stared at his feet, and then at the wall opposite, and he sensed Armin’s attention follow his own as if there were something there worth seeing. 

The glance at Armin’s profile was involuntary. This close, Eren could see the fine, gold fringe of his lashes, how the lamplight caught the colour of his iris in a prism. The slope of his brow, and the upturn of his nose. You would think Eren had traced its shape every night of his life for how well he knew it. He practically had, even if only in his imagination.

“Your nose,” he said, surprising himself. “It didn’t have a nose.”

Armin turned to look at him—or rather, to blink at him, confused by the outburst. “What?”

“Your titan, I mean,” Eren said, and then stopped short. It was the first time he’d said that. _Your titan_. Maybe it was even the first time he had thought it. “Its face—it looks a little like a skull. Though that sounds… ugh. You really should just get Jean to draw it.”

Despite Eren’s mumbling around the foot in his mouth, Armin did not appear upset. More curious: his hand went to the bridge of his nose, as if to make sure it was there still. There was a wryness to his smile and in his voice.

“If you’re trying to make it sound less creepy, then that was a terrible attempt.”

Eren felt heat rising up his neck, from his chest, a rapid spill like hot wax.

“Mine’s no better,” he said quickly. _Creepy_. It brought Jean’s words to mind, and Eren leapt on them—for there really was no one who could understand Armin like he could, and Armin like him, and that had to be worth something. “We can frighten small children together.”

Armin made a noise that was not quite a laugh, but near enough that it thrilled him.

“I think we’d frighten more than just small children… Anyway, at least your power suits you.”

“Oh, thanks. Was that an attempt to make _me_ feel better?”

Another non-laugh, though this one closer to the real thing. The flush on Eren’s face was increasingly a pleased one.

Armin rolled his shoulders, leaning back. He had to grip the bed’s slats to brace himself; he tilted far enough that his feet left the floor. “Not like that,” he said. “I don’t know how to explain it. It’s not that it looks like you, not really, but you can feel that it’s you, somehow. It’s… different. Special,” Armin finished lamely. He averted his gaze to the ceiling, and as his hair fell back from his face, Eren could see that his ears were a windbitten red.

The words made Eren feel unmoored from himself, from the dark cabin they were huddled in. He wanted to argue, almost, because Eren was so far from special that it sickened him that he had ever thought otherwise. It wasn’t that it was more believable, coming from Armin. There would be no shaking that cold and certain truth from Eren’s soul. But that Armin might believe it, and with the way he had said so—it soothed some savage hurt that Eren thought he had long grown used to.

Armin yawned. The dark circles that ringed his eyes were black as a bruise. As he adjusted himself against the edge of the frame (it was starting to cut off Eren’s circulation), Armin toppled against his side. Even as he righted himself, he made no move to stand. The realisation unfolded itself slowly, mostly because Eren himself was tired-slow: Armin was forgoing sleep just to speak with him. Sleep he desperately needed. And with that curious mix of awe and guilt, affection bloomed in him with such warmth that it overtook all else.

Armin swayed again into Eren’s shoulder. “Do you remember what it felt like, the first time you shifted?” he asked.

“Not really. But the second time—I was more conscious, I guess, so—yeah.” Though it had been less sensation and more like a dream. That peculiar illusion of comfort, of home, and the noise of Armin’s fists hammering the glass. He thought back to how Armin had described it on the cart. “Hot, sure. But it didn’t feel heavy, exactly.”

Armin murmured in agreement. “That wasn’t the right way to put it,” he said, almost sheepish. “It felt more like being trapped, maybe. Like I couldn’t move. It didn’t move, did it? Hanji said so.”

“Which was a good thing,” Eren said, trying to sound reasonable. Armin would say the same if he were in the right frame of mind, but the rising heat of his anxiety was obvious. “For now, anyway. If you don’t have that much control yet, isn’t it better that you don’t move?”

Armin looked away again, though not out of shyness. “I know. And I know that one wrong move could be disastrous, I just…” Armin paused, and his breath shook. “We need results quickly. And I know it’s not fair to expect them so easy as that,” he added, sensing Eren’s argument before he could make it. “But I need to get this, and I wish I could just—do it. I knew it would be difficult, and that it could have gone so much worse, but…”

He trailed off helplessly. Though he wasn’t crying, Eren knew the bright glazed look of his eyes. Armin touched the back of his hand beneath his nose, against his mouth, as if to stem some emotion before it could escape. 

“It’s okay,” Eren said. He moved without thinking, catching his elbow; though he did not pull, Armin let the weight of it draw his arm away from his face. “It’ll be fine. We always figure it out— _you_ always figure it out.”

Something in Armin’s expression made it seem like he didn’t believe him, but exhaustion tore that look away before Eren could determine exactly what it was. Armin yawned again, hard enough that his eyes did water. 

There was an embarrassed pause.

“You should… I should let you go to bed,” Eren said, finally. He should have suggested it three tangents ago. He shouldn’t have come here at all—but then, that had never really been an option.

“I’m fine,” Armin insisted, though the comeback was given too quickly to be honest truth. When Eren slid along the cot, Armin tilted after him like a bent reed in the wind. He sat upright immediately, but the damage was done. “Okay. Maybe not as fine as I thought.”

Eren lifted him to his feet, a wobbly but stable stand. Armin managed to walk on his own, and Eren was not brave enough to suggest otherwise no matter how badly he wanted to—not out of kindness, more a selfish excuse—to touch Armin, and to keep touching him, to bear that weight like it was his own. But he could no more say that than he could offer a helping hand.

“I could stay,” Eren said instead. It was hardly any better, and he cringed even as the words left his mouth. Armin froze where he was laying out his bedroll. “I mean, not overnight. And only if you’d like me to. But maybe I could stay until you fell asleep, or something?”

Oh, god. Condescending, like Armin needed his nightmares warded off. But before he could apologise and sprint for the door, Armin answered him.

“I wouldn’t mind,” he said. He had resumed setting up his bedding, but his face was turned deliberately away, and his voice was very even. “Only if you don’t mind either?”

By the time Eren had processed that this was a question—and the fact that Armin might have been just-maybe-probably blushing—Armin was halfway into his bedroll. He looked up at Eren, expectant. A shivering current passed through his chest, up his arms, as sure as if Armin had run his palms along them. The air he breathed, the hunger he swallowed: each went down like gravel.

“Here,” Armin said as Eren made his stumbling way over. He levered up on his elbows and shunted his pack across the floor. 

Eren took it, purely because Armin had handed it to him. “Do you need something out of it?”

Armin shook his head. “No—you can sit on it. It’s not the most comfortable, I know, but… well… it’s better than sitting on the ground.”

Eren huffed, mostly out of amusement. The pointless kindness of it—unexpected, even as Eren should have known to expect it—relaxed him. The knife-edge of his feelings lifted away. After all, Armin was still Armin. Lying there, the blanket nearly up to his chin, staring at Eren like he was the only person in the world. Though Armin tended to look at every curiosity that same way. 

“Are you sure?” Eren asked.

Armin frowned, though it lacked much power with how wrapped up he was. “There’s nothing breakable in there. Or sharp, if that’s what you’re worried about.”

Eren huffed another laugh. He saw no reason to argue. Armin’s pack was full but not heavy, and he flipped it on to its front to give himself a more even surface to sit on. With his back up against the wall, and his legs stretched out ahead of him, he was decently comfortable. He had been in worse conditions and positions than this, many times. As he looked down at Armin lying next to him—within arm’s easy reach, pale hair fanning the pillow—Eren realised that he would have sat on a lake’s frozen surface without complaint.  
  
  
  
  
“Do you still think about the outside world?”

Eren jolted out of his daze. He had thought Armin was asleep. With the natural lapse into silence, Eren had found no reason to disturb it. It had been pleasing enough simply to listen to their breathing, at times in such perfect tandem that there could have been one person in the room alone. Eventually, inevitably, they had moved out of step with each other. Armin’s breathing had grown slow, the laboured rhythm of a deep sleep. Though clearly not as deep as it had seemed.

There was no way for Eren to pretend he hadn’t heard the question. Not to Armin. Not even to himself: memories bloomed foul to the surface like muck stirred from the river’s bed. He saw the sea turned the colour of rust by the setting sun. He saw a girl’s mangled body—his sister’s mangled body—his aunt—a girl, her face too torn to know. The sea—now not so dark as rust, more the colour of blood or a penny, its copper shine dulled by time and by touch. He saw the unbroken horizon, a landscape giving rise only to the crest of a mountain, so far in the distance that it took on the fading slate-blue of the sky. He saw Shiganshina’s wall from within and without. Grassland churned up only by the horses of the Survey Corps. 

There was a flash of light, of movement, in the here and now. Eren sensed the turn of Armin’s head. He felt the heat of Armin’s gaze as he watched him. Even half-closed, even with the dark so dense, those eyes were bright as fire. 

“Of course I do,” Eren said, and while he sounded honest—indeed, it wasn’t a lie—he had taken too long to say so. A shadow passed over Armin’s face.

“You’ve seen it already, though, haven’t you. In those memories.”

It wasn’t a question, and there wasn’t any point trying to pretend otherwise.

“… Yeah. I have.” 

He didn’t want to see Armin’s reaction, if there was one. Eren turned his gaze to the window opposite. There were no curtains, and the light of the moon spread across the floor in a watercolour bleed. 

“I hope it’s better when you see it with your own eyes,” Armin said. “When we get to see it together.”

Eren had expected him to sound sad. He would have understood sadness. But while Armin’s voice shook, it was not with unshed tears. It was a voice he knew, though, even having heard it only once. Once was enough. The memory of it would be burned into him until he vanished into the dust of the earth. _Have I ever lied to you, Eren?_

And now—as he had then—Eren wanted Armin to be right. So often, Armin _was_ right. That was the thing about lies, though, wasn’t it? As long as you wanted to believe, they were as good as the truth. As long as you trusted the person that told them—even if you recognised the false look they wore, even if they didn’t know they spoke a lie—still you would want to believe. 

“I’m sure it will,” Eren said, and he hated himself for saying it. Without looking, without giving himself the chance to reconsider, he touched his hand to the crown of Armin’s head. “It’ll be better than any book.”

Eren was ready for the response when it came, this time. He did not flinch at the sound of Armin’s voice. His whisper was so quiet that it would have been drowned out by the wind, had any blown. But still it had the power to surprise him. 

“Please stay.”

Eren’s intake of breath became some tangled thing caught in his ribs. “I’m not going anywhere,” he said, trying to match Armin’s softness. “I’m right here.”

There was a shuddering sigh. “I know,” Armin murmured. His voice was thick with sleep, and the words came slow. “But sometimes, even when you’re here… it’s like you’ve gone away.”

Armin could not have known what he said. He might as well have been dreaming. To look at him, to listen to him, you would think he _was_ dreaming. But then, Eren noticed what he had somehow missed before—a feeble but insistent tug, as if he’d snagged himself on a splinter. Armin had slipped one hand out from beneath the sheet, and in between his thumb and forefinger he held the edge of Eren’s sleeve. Eren stared at it. The fine bones of his wrist, his ragged nails. Armin’s hand, slack but for the meagre grip he had on Eren’s cuff. 

Eren’s heartbeat sounded in his ears, loud as cannon fire. The blood drained from him into some vast and empty place. He felt numb all over, but as he shifted his weight, as he moved his hand enough that Armin’s might brush against it, no strange visions overtook him. Only his own memories tugged at Eren’s mind, and he was worn too thin to dwell even on those familiar things. Better to be here, in this moment, with Armin mere inches from him.

“You always bring me back,” Eren said. He didn’t know if it was the assurance Armin needed; he hardly understood what it was he asked for. It was true, though, and Eren himself was proof enough of that. “You and Mikasa. You never know when to give up. You never have.”

There was no reply, this time. Sleep, at last, had stolen Armin away. Eren wondered whether that was better or worse, and then decided it was better not to wonder at all. 

He would have to leave soon. The shadows crossing the floor had shifted, and by now the room was almost swallowed up by them. Eren knew he would only wake up sore tomorrow if he slept here, and sorer still for the chewing out—meaningless as the precaution was, if Eren was caught leaving Armin’s quarters in the morning when he was meant to be in isolation, Hanji would not be pleased.

But five minutes more? That was nothing. Eren could keep awake that long. He could count the seconds in this cold cramped place, rooted where he sat. Five minutes. Eren felt the moon on his face, and the ghosts at his back, and Armin’s hand nearly in his own. Five minutes. He could not ask for more. It already felt like more than he deserved.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so sorry for the delay on getting this final chapter out! like it is for most everyone, december has been a busy month for me. but i'm so glad to bring the year to an end by bringing this fic to an end (with an unexpectedly long chapter, oops...) editing fanfiction on new years eve was not how i expected it to go, but, well, i'm not really complaining.
> 
> i had some overlong endnotes written out, too, and i stupidly lost them. i'll likely rewrite and edit them in here later, but for now—thank you so much for reading. the feedback was truly wonderful, and every single comment made such a difference to my day. as i mentioned before, i have a few related one-shots in mind, so keep an eye out for a series if you're interested. and, of course, i wish you all a happy new year! here's to a better one ahead.


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